Lance Was Wrong, We Were Right. It Happens.
Why Cadel Didn’t Win The Tour de France
On July 12th, we published an article (see link below) laying out the reasons why Cadel Evans would lose the Tour de France. Over following days, we had reason to sweat having gone out on a limb with such a prediction, because Cadel appeared awfully calm and under control.
However, we couldn’t get past the idea that a single man, virtually unassisted by his team, could prevail.
Interestingly, both before and after the date we went on the record with our thoughts, Lance Armstrong pointed at Cadel Evans as the eventual winner of this year’s Tour. We found that particularly interesting because our thesis had been that Lance had won the Tour seven times by being the best rider AND bringing the best supporting team every year.
And even then he usually won by only narrow time margins.
Nevertheless, Lance apparently thought Cadel could do it singlehandedly, whereas we thought this was, uh, rubbish.
We said Cadel was no Lance, and Cadel’s support squad was anything but the Blue Train.
We said that a strategy of aiming for number two on every stage then hoping to put the race away with a win in the final time trial would expose Cadel to too many taunts he’d have to cover, and we said there were too many teams that believed they could beat Cadel, and would try at every chance.
Up to the point in time we made this ballsy prognostication, the hubbub had been all about the apparent team strength of Caisse and Columbia, whereas CSC had been quietly lurking in the shadows. We wrote subsequently about CSC and said we liked their team strength once the race got into the mountains — but guys like Sastre, the Schlecks, and so on, would have to step up and show more than just “promise” if they were to make a serious run at winning the Tour.
Fast forward
What we saw when the race entered the Alps was a virtual gang beating of Cadel Evans by CSC, quite obviously executing a strategy by Bjarne Riis to cause Cadel to have to pedal his legs off to try to keep the wheel of Cancellara and Voigt and O’Grady until the peloton reached the mountains, and then have to singlehandedly chase down attacks from three CSC mountain-men as well as Menchov, Vandevelde, Valverde and others who cared to take a flyer up the hillside.
By attacking relentlessly after Sastre broke away on Alpe d’Huez, Cadel spent Friday afternoon going into the red over and over again, with absolutely nobody on his team or any other willing to help him, and thus no opportunity for recovery. Not only did this earn Sastre a relatively smooth and easy climb - he completed it two minutes slower than Lance had in previous Tours - up the famed mountain, but just as importantly it caused Cadel Evans to spend bullets he hoped to save for the ever-important time trial on Saturday.
Bjarne Riis planned this — trust us.
Bjarne sicked the Schleck brothers on Evans and told them to make Evans jump anytime the Australian tried to settle into a cadence and get the big motor working. Bjarne knew Cadel simply wasn’t geared to rev up and spool down quickly — Cadel climbs most effectively when he can set his own pace, and he can certainly be dangerous in the mountains if allowed to do so.
So Bjarne used - and we mean used beautifully - the CSC armada of riders to ensure Cadel Evans would never be allowed to ride his own race over the Alps, and would be in a world of hurt when it came to the next day’s TT stage.
For those of us who weren’t paying attention to the faces of the CSC men who rode their own “time trials” on the run into the Alpe d’Huez, re-play your DVR and look closely at their pained expressions. These guys gave their legs to Carlos Sastre, ensuring that no man, especially including Cadel Evans, had a chance to jump ahead of CSCs leader and take an advantage.
Then look at the faces of the Schleck brothers during the entire climb up the Alpe after Sastre’s breakaway. What you won’t see, is huge amounts of pain. I think I saw a smile on Andy’s face as he jumped after one breakaway then another. He wasn’t hardly panting as he bridged gaps and demoralized other riders by quickly reeling them in.
Ditto Frank, who sat dutifully on Cadel’s wheel showing the big man that he couldn’t shake CSC’s shadows. Adding insult to injury, Frank made one or two feigned breaks of his own - causing Cadel to surge forward in alarm - only to settle into S-turns and wait for Cadel to get back on front and resume the work of chasing down Carlos Sastre.
Soon, Cadel was fighting his bike like he wanted off of it and every team director saw it. So Kohl and Valverde and Sammy Sanchez and others each took their own shots at Cadel, and he struggled mightily against these surges, getting weaker each time, and borrowing from tomorrow energy to complete the day’s ride.
Meanwhile, Sastre spun a steady pace comfortably below his redline, picking up five seconds here, and five more there, until a minute of advantage and then two, were his for the keeping.
Near the end, Sammy Sanchez jumped and was given a long leash by the demolished and exhausted peloton — until Andy Schleck decided he needed a spot of exercise and bridged the gap with what appeared to be relative ease, and then the two men sprinted for second place on the stage.
As Cadel rolled across the line well over two minutes behind Carlos Sastre, he literally melted off his bike. Again, watch the videos and you’ll see that Sastre looked quite intact at the finish, while Cadel was in such a degree of agony there would be no way he could shake it off for Saturday’s individual time trial.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Here’s our final prediction about the Tour, or our first ones about next year’s.
Consider these words biblical and inviolable: Cadel and his squad will learn from this disappointment, and they won’t make the same mistake again. Even though they didn’t learn when Contador, et. al., did the same thing to them in last year’s Tour.
No, we think the lesson has been fully absorbed this time, because it wasn’t Alberto Contador beating Cadel Evans. With all due respect to Carlos Sastre, he’s not quite the rider his fellow Spaniard A.C. is.
Interestingly, in 2009 CSC will be looking to defend the Yellow Jersey, while Astana will also be looking to do so. I know that’s confusing, but that’s cycling.
In any case, Cadel will be there, but if he doesn’t bring a boatload of strong support riders, we won’t be bothered writing about him but for an eventual footnote that reads something like, “always near the front, finished top 5 again.”
CSC will be back with its armada of lethal support riders, with Sastre at the helm and young Andy Schleck the heir apparent — but defending the Jersey will require keeping it away from the hungry 900-pound gorilla known as Astana.
Astana will likely bring the strongest team in the business, and arguably there’s no more likely winner of the 2009 Tour than Alberto Contador. Provided he maintains his health until then, we anticipate a very heated battle which will result in Contador donning the Yellow Jersey once again. Enough said.
Thanks for tuning in. We’ll be watching the Tour of Spain and the Tour of Missouri and sending you more of these invaluable insights, forecasts, and opinions, and shame on you if you don’t find a way to profit from them.
Categories: Hub, System6, Tour de France, Tour of Missouri, team astana, team csc
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